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behavior, survival, and formations of societies that can cooperate together to achieve larger objectives and survive together against the odds. There are always outliers—we might think of them as psychopaths, sociopaths, people that can’t, for whatever reason, manage to get along with anyone else. But in general healthy, emotional human beings have this innate desire to be good people. Even the most, we might say “greedy,” have an impulse to give back. Q: How did you get into working with PATH? Can you tell us a little bit about the organization for those of us who do not know? A: PATH stands for “People Assisting The Homeless.” It’s a 30-year-old organization, and is a nonprofit agency that assists the homeless in becoming housed. Our mission is to end homelessness for individuals, and also for communities. It’s a very multi-faceted organization, but we work with clients one by one with case management services; we connect them to whatever services they need individually to help them overcome whatever barriers they are facing to being housed. I got involved when I was a pastor. It started in Los Angeles, but now it’s in 22 locations, from San
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Diego to San Luis Obispo and possibly soon in San Jose. To my knowledge, we are the largest nonprofit homeless service agency in the state of California. When I started “Year Without God” in January, someone in PATH e-mailed me that they had some openings and I applied. I started out in one of our job centers in West LA helping individuals work on their resumes and interviewing skills. Then in August I moved over to be the director of community engagement. I get to interface on behalf of PATH government, other nonprofits, and, ironically, faith-based organizations as well. You can volunteer, and if people have MSWs we seem to always be hiring social workers. Q: What is next for you after this “Year Without God” journey? What other projects are on your radar? A: One of the most interesting things that I discovered this year is that there are thousands of people who are somewhere in between; they are uncomfortable giving up the idea of God. They recognize the problems with religion and with faith, and they are stuck in between. So I, for a year, put myself in this in-between space in a public way and what’s happened is
Transgender Suicide Raises Awareness With the world poised to discuss social issues, transgender teen Leelah, born Josh, Alcorn committed suicide on December 28 in her home state of Ohio, causing shockwaves around the country. Her death on the highway was planned, as a post on her blog explained. In the post Alcorn, who was 17, cites the reason for committing suicide as depression rooted in her parents’ inability to accept her as transgender. While her blog has since been deleted, the suicide note has received over 200,000 notes on the website and is still in circulation. Alcorn’s blog explains that she had felt “like a girl trapped in a boy’s body” since she was 4 and at 14 learned the term “transgender.” Alcorn writes, “After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my
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that, without exaggeration, about a thousand people have written to me over the course of the year who have said, “I’m somewhere along this spectrum. I’m not comfortable saying that I’m a Christian but I’m not comfortable saying that I’m an atheist. I feel stuck.” There’s no framework, venue, or forum in which people can process that. So I’m interested in creating spaces for people who are in this liminal space where they can deal with, struggle with and come to whatever conclusion they like. Q: Do you have any last advice for PUC students regarding humanitarian work? A: I think I’m always reminded that we have this one planet and this one life. The planet is a lot smaller than we think and we need to share it. We need to zoom out—to see the big picture, and realize that when you take heaven or the earth made new out of the equation, this is not like Mario Bros. where you get to have seven lives. We have this one opportunity to make an impression on our families, our children and our society, and I just think that you have to make the best of it.
By Tara Hattendorf
mom, and she reacted extremely negatively.” Her parents, conservative Christians, sent her to therapists, but Alcorn writes that they only advised her to “look to God for help” while ignoring her psychological needs. Eventually Alcorn’s parents removed her from public school and cut off her communication from her friends, worsening her depression and loneliness. Even after her parents allowed her to talk to her friends again she still felt alone, and she explains multiple times in the blog post how she hates herself. In committing suicide Alcorn writes of her hopes that society would fix itself. “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human
rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something.” Alcorn’s wish is in the process of being granted, as within hours of her suicide her blog post had spread far around the Internet and to all forms of social and news media. Celebrities shared their condolences and Internet communities came together to mourn Alcorn’s death. In the weeks following her suicide, people shared inspiring stories on Twitter with the hashtag #RealLifeTransAdult explaining that it really does get better and encouraging transgender youth not to give up hope. A petition to ban transgender conversion therapy was created on Change.org on December 31 and has received over 300,000 signatures.